Twenty-second Sunday Ordinary

Twenty-second Sunday Ordinary
August 28, 2005

"... I will speak in his name no more. But then it becomes like fire burning in my heart..." (Jeremiah 20:7-8). "My soul is thirsting for you, oh Lord my God" (Psalm 63:2). "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me..." (Matthew 18:21-27)

Jeremiah begins by blaming God for all his suffering, but cannot sustain his resentment and bitterness in the face of his love of the Most High. It seems clear what Jeremiah was going through. His suffering and alienation was simply getting the best of him until he could get it out of his system. Like most of us, he needed enough time to complain and blame, to lick his wounds before returning to the center of his life and destiny. He allowed his love to overcome his anger about what had and would happen to him.

Jesus rebukes Peter (again!) for presuming to oppose the order of things for God's anointed one, and anyone who wishes to follow him, Poor Peter, poor us, we just can't seem to get it right. Jesus' frustration boils over when Peter attempts to deny His cosmic destiny which would include alienation, suffering and death. I wonder if we don't often do the same with ourselves and those close to us. Sometimes our misguided efforts to protect ourselves from this reality of life turns out to bring with it more suffering rather than less. I say it isn't so doesn't make it go away. If our heavenly Father did not (could not?) protect Jesus from this, why would we think we should be any different?

Apparently there is no spiritual life without embracing loss, suffering and death, sooner or later. If no one escapes this reality, then how best to accept and even benefit from it? It has struck me over the past several years of first anticipating and then experiencing the reality of debilitating illness that it seems to be as hard to observe from outside as it is to go through it myself. Remaining outside one's self, and involved with the lives of others as they care for me seems to be part of the process of "taking up the Cross". The problems we all face, minor and major, seem to be more bearable when shared. I think this is part of what Jesus meant when he said that we all must bear our crosses if we would follow him.

The Most High may not always cause life's difficulties, even though we often hear people tell us that "God must have something in mind for you", or that our pain or deprivation is for "our own good". Maybe loss, pain and suffering is not willed by God but simply the way things are. We can learn from it to the extent that we can discover God's presence within it.